1 June 2009
5 records I couldn’t live without
I got asked a tricky question in one of those late night bar crawling discussions.
What are your top 5 records you absolutely couldn’t live without. Albums, in the loosest sense. They could be CD, old school vinyl, stuff you have on mp3 (as a backup off course)… Now there was a nasty question I needed to give more thought than beer. So, in no particular order, here’s my answer.
1/ Le nozze di figaro - Mozart
I don’t think I could ever survive without classical music. I could easily fill this top 5 with just classics, even when I restrict myself to only baroque or even only Mozart I still would need more than 5. I could have picked nearly any of the Mozart operas, but I have a particular fondness towards this opera, both for its plot and its music. I don’t really want to pick highlights in this one since that would be doing injustice towards the ones I didn’t pick. Just start here and follow along.
I love Cash, not just for his voice and the odd imperfection in it. I love most country music and this disc offers a nice combination between foot tapping and ballads. If Elvis is the king of Rock’n Roll, Cash & Carter are the President and First Lady of country music and so definitely deserve a place in my list.
3/ Sunday Snooze IV - Soulshine (MP3)
I discovered Soulshine some time ago. Even though the Sunday Snooze series is slightly outside the normal mixes on there, I really love this one. This one in particular is filled with mostly acoustic material and to me is one of the most ideal soundtracks to a Sunday afternoon spent on the couch.
4/ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - Smashing Pumpkins
I have long debated this choice. This record has by and large defined my younger years, together with Pearl Jam’s Ten and Nirvana’s Nevermind. All of them could have easily been placed here, but ultimately I picked the record that I still love most today. You either love the voice of Billy Corgan or you totally hate it, but you can’t deny that he has a wide palette of emotions. The album also offers that same broad spectrum with solid rock (like bullet with butterfly wings or zero) but equally so touches on the light shade (by starlight) or the simple and pure music from the title track.
5/The Boatman’s call - Nick Cave
Probably not so much liked by the fans of his earlier work, yet I adore this album. Cave’s deep dark voice fits perfectly for the ballads of this album. Typical for this album is the virtual absence of the bad seeds. Even though they are playing on this album, they are mostly present by staying far in the background. It’s really focussed around the man and his piano and God knows…give me a piano and a good voice and I surrender.
Everybody understands that 5 is way too little to pick. So honorable mentions should go out to 2Pac, my brother ArdiXIV for some of his deephouse mixes, the guys from Metallica, even more Mozart (notably the requiem mass), and many many more that provide(d) me with occasional distraction. Yet the above 5 are albums that, no matter how long, have a high chance of being present on my ipod at any given time.
2 Comments currently posted.
pieter a says:
Don Ardonio says:
Yeah, there’s quite a bit of brotherly influence amongst us. Even in this list, I don’t think I’d ever discovered Cave without my (older) brothers
Altough we’ve never been exposed to country, it strangely runs in the family I guess.